The Legacy of Roger Ebert

I have been unable to write for a while now. I have several health problems that make me exhausted and achy 24/7 (and have left me permanently disabled), and it’s been very difficult for me to keep up with the demands of blogging on a regular basis. And yet, here was a man who loved to write, and continued to write through three kinds of cancer – cancer that took away his ability to speak and to eat, but not to think and to write. And if he could find the inspiration and drive to write through all of that, then the least I can do is to write about what he meant to me.

When I was young, I had trouble deciding between several careers I wanted to pursue, but most revolved around my natural ability to write. Most of all, I wanted to be a movie critic. I’m so grateful to Bitch Flicks for giving me the opportunity to actually achieve one of my childhood dreams, and I’m also grateful that they’ve been so understanding about my disability. Since I was a kid, there were no Laura Mulveys or Francois Truffauts to influence my thinking yet. There was, instead, Siskel & Ebert. I wanted to write in a newspaper, and go on TV, and talk about movies and how they made me feel. And while Siskel was arguably the more academic of the pair, it was Ebert’s emotionally-based reviews that really touched me.

I loved it when he loved a movie. I loved it when he hated a movie. He was the master of the zinger, and had an incredible sarcastic wit that I have tried hard to emulate in my own movie reviews. I loved how he could analyze films – I have seen Casablanca a thousand times, but his DVD commentary made the film even better for me. I even loved his sheepish appreciation of well-endowed women – he was just a charming man in general.

He was born the exact same day as one of my other idols, Paul McCartney. And his passing today has made me realize how few of my idols I have gotten a chance to meet. Two years ago he was in Toronto and was doing a book signing for his recently published memoir. I wanted to go, but decided not to because I was physically incapable of standing in line for too long. You cannot imagine how I regret that now. He, like so many of my other idols, Jane Austen, Diana Norman, Fred Rogers, Chuck Jones, and Jim Henson, have all passed away before I had a chance to meet them and tell them what they meant to me. If I get a chance to meet another of my idols, I won’t pass it up next time.

I have a very dog-eared copy of his 2nd collection of scathing movie reviews, “Your Movie Sucks.” It has been well-loved, because even his utter scorn for a movie gave me a sorely needed emotional lift. I really should get around to buying his collections of other books. I even loved reading his Glossary of Movie Terms, which was kind of a proto-TV Tropes in that it affectionately documented and poked fun at all the cliches and archetypes we see in the movies way too many times.

I didn’t always agree with Roger Ebert’s reviews. It would be impossible to always agree with them. But they were almost always well-reasoned. I wish I knew if he ever revised his opinion of Dirty Dancing (which he gave a negative review to when it first came out). Hell, I wish I knew if he ever revised his opinion of Crash. His ability to reason out his opinions, even when I disagreed with them, has been a major influence on my approach to media analysis. If you can back up what you’re saying with evidence and reasoning, then any argument you can make is legitimate.

So, for you, Mr. Ebert, I will try to write again. I can’t let my fibromyalgia defeat me, when you didn’t let your cancers defeat you. Even to the very end, you were still writing, still planning, still hoping, still looking to the future. I hope you won’t mind this mostly emotionally-based tribute, as I am sobbing a bit too much to be able to look up relevant quotes right now. I suppose it’s silly that I’m crying over a man I never got a chance to meet. But because he showed us his incredible mind through his writing, I feel that I got to know him. So thank you for your reviews and analysis, Mr. Ebert. You have been an enduring influence on me, and you have left the greatest legacy on movie criticism possible. As you said in the final sentence of your final article: See you at the movies.

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Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.